Peter Chartier (c. 16901759) (Anglicized version of Pierre Chartier, sometimes written Chartiere, Chartiers, Shartee or Shortive) was a fur trader of mixed Shawnee and French parentage. Known in Shawnee as Wacanackshina, he later became a leader and a band chief among the Pekowi Shawnee. As an early advocate for Native American civil rights, he joined other chiefs in opposing the sale and trade of alcohol in indigenous communities in the Province of Pennsylvania. He first tried to limit the sale of rum in Shawnee communities but also expanded that effort to other indigenous peoples.
Because of conflict with the English provincial government, in 1745 he accepted a French commission and left Pennsylvania with his band. Beginning with more than 400 Pekowi Shawnee, he migrated over the next four years through parts of modern Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee. He and his people eventually resettled in the Illinois Country of New France, near a French colonial community. He and some of his warriors later fought on the side of the French against the English during the French and Indian War.
Chartier is memorialized in numerous place names, including communities (Chartiers Township and Chartiers (Pittsburgh)),Donehoo, George P. A History of the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania. Papamoa Press, 2019.Chester Hale Sipe, "The Principal Indian Towns of Western Pennsylvania," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, v. 13, no. 2; April 1, 1930; pp. 104-122 rivers (including Chartiers CreekCharles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 1, Putnam's sons, 1911 and Chartiers Run (Allegheny River tributary)) and school districts such as the Chartiers Houston and Chartiers Valley School Districts.
Early life and family
He was born Pierre Chartier, the son of a French colonist Martin Chartier (1655–1718).Chartier Family Association family tree Martin Chartier and Sewatha Straight Tail (1660–1759),Chief Straight Tail, posted Aug 22, 2011.Review: Harriette Simpson Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland, Michigan State University Press. (2013) a daughter of Straight Tail Meaurroway Opessa and his wife, of the Pekowi Shawnee.American-Canadian Genealogist, (New Hampshire: American Canadian Genealogical Society), Vol 19, No 2, p. 61: "The Chartiers: An Indian Life".
Pierre Chartier was born in 1690 at French Lick on the Cumberland River in northeastern Tennessee, near the present-day site of Nashville, Tennessee,Robert Trail, "Livingston County, Kentucky: Stepping Stone to Illinois," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 69, No. 3 (July, 1971), pp. 239-272.Chartier Family Association family tree where his father ran a trading post.
His mother gave Pierre the Shawnee name of Wacanackshina, meaning "White one who reclines". Around 1697 his family moved to Pequea Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.William Henry Egle, Historical Register: Notes and Queries, Biographical and Genealogical, Vol. 2, 1884; p. 254.
Pierre Chartier married his first cousin, Blanceneige-Wapakonee Opessa (1695–1737), daughter of Opessa Straight Tail and his wife, about 1710. They had three children together: François "Pale Croucher" (b. 1712), René "Pale Stalker" (b. 1720), and Anna (b. 1730).Noel Schutz, Don Greene, Shawnee Heritage I, Vol. 1: Shawnee Genealogy and Family History, Lulu.com, 2008 In 1717, Governor William Penn granted his father Martin a 300-acre tract of land along the Conestoga River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.Martin Chartier (One source says the grant was for 500 acres.). Together the father and son established a trading post in Conestoga Town.C. Hale Sipe, The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania : an account of the Indian events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian war, Pontiac's war, Lord Dunmore's war, the revolutionary war, and the Indian uprising from 1789 to 1795; tragedies of the Pennsylvania frontier based primarily on the Penna. archives and colonial records, Harrisburg, PA: The Telegraph Press, 1929. In 1718 they moved to Dekanoagah on Yellow Breeches Creek near the Susquehanna River. Martin Chartier died there in April of that year.Paul A. W. Wallace, Indians in Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993; pp. 125-128George Thornton Fleming, Volume 1 of History of Pittsburgh and Environs, from Prehistoric Days to the Beginning of the American Revolution, American Historical Society, 1922.Stephen Warren, Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America, UNC Press Books, 2014
Chartier's father's funeral was attended by James Logan, a future Mayor of Philadelphia. Immediately afterward, Logan seized Martin Chartier's 250-acre estate, saying that Martin owed him a debt of 108 pounds, 19 shillings, and 3 and 3/4 pence.Francis Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty of 1744, W. W. Norton & Company, 1984; p. 270. Logan had Peter Chartier (as he was now called) and his family evicted, and also expelled a community of Conestoga who were living on the property. He later sold the property to Stephen Atkinson for 30 pounds.
Career as a trader
Logan permitted Chartier to maintain his trading post on the land as a tenant. Eventually Chartier opened another post at Paxtang on the Susquehanna River. (A 1736 map of Paxtang Manor by surveyor Edward Smout shows the home of Peter Chartier [spelled "Peter Shottea"] in what is today New Cumberland, Pennsylvania.William Albert Hunter, "Peter Chartier: Knave of the Wild Frontier; The adventures of the first private owner of the site of New Cumberland and a record of subsequent landowners to 1814." Paper presented before the Cumberland County Historical Society on February 16, 1973. New Cumberland, PA: Historical Papers of the Cumberland County Historical Society Vol 9, no. 4 (1973); Cumberland County National Bank and Trust Co.).Donald H. Kent, Harry E. Whipkey, and Martha L. Simonetti, Descriptive list of the map collection in the Pennsylvania State Archives: catalogue of maps in the principal map collection (MG 11). Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1976; p. 52. Although Chartier eventually became a wealthy landowner, his experience with Logan embittered him. It was one of the reasons he turned against the Provincial Government.
On 3 November 1730 Peter Chartier was licensed by the English court in Lancaster County to trade with the Indians in south-western Pennsylvania. By 1732 Chartier, who was tri-lingual in Shawnee, French and English, had become well known as a negotiator between the Shawnee and the traders who came to sell them goods.
The Quaker trader Edmund Cartlidge wrote to Governor Patrick Gordon on 14 May 1732:
In September and October 1732, Chartier and Cartlidge served as interpreters during a conference in Philadelphia attended by Opakethwa and Opakeita, two Shawnee chiefs, with Thomas Penn, Governor Gordon, and the 72-member Pennsylvania Provincial Council. Also with Chartier and the two chiefs was Quassenung, son of Shawnee chief Kakowatcheky. The minutes of the conference record that both Opakethwa and Quassenung died of smallpox during their visit to Philadelphia.
Conflict with the colonial government
Alcohol abuse and Native Americans in Pennsylvania
Beginning around 1675, traders had been selling rum in Shawnee communities. Several violent deaths were attributed to its influence.Peter C. Mancall, Deadly Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America, Cornell University Press, 1997. In October 1701 the Pennsylvania Assembly had prohibited the sale of rum to Native American people.Joseph Galloway, ed. The Acts of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania, Carefully Compared with the Originals: And an Appendix, Containing Such Acts and Parts of Acts, Relating to Property, as are Expired, Altered, Or Repealed. Together with the Royal, Proprietary, City, and Borough Charters, Pennsylvania, Hall and Sellers, 1775.
Because the law was poorly enforced in the frontier society, and the penalty was light—a fine of ten pounds and confiscation of any illegal supplies—traders continued to use rum to barter for furs. Traders soon began selling rum on credit in order to extort furs and skins and labor from the Shawnee.
By the early 1700s the effects of alcohol abuse were damaging Shawnee communities. Rum, brandy and other distilled beverages had become important trade items, frequently served in diplomatic councils, treaty negotiations, and political transactions and had become part of Native American gift-giving rituals. The adverse effects of alcohol among Native Americans included an erosion of civility, an increase in violence and widespread health problems. Alcohol made men less reliable hunters and allies, destabilized village economics, and contributed to a rise in poverty among Native Americans.A. Glynn Henderson, "The Lower Shawnee Town on Ohio: Sustaining Native Autonomy in an Indian "Republic"." In Craig Thompson Friend, ed., The Buzzel about Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land, University Press of Kentucky, 1999; pp. 25-56.
Native American leaders objected to the widespread use of alcohol. The minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania for 16 May 1704 record a complaint submitted by Chief Ortiagh of the Conestoga Indians:
Attempts to control the sale of alcohol On 24 April 1733 the Shawnee chiefs at "Allegania" sent a petition to Governor Gordon complaining that "There is yearly and monthly some new upstart of a trader without license, who comes amongst us and brings with him nothing but rum ..." and asking permission to destroy the casks of rum: "We therefore beg thou would take it into consideration, and send us two firm orders, one for Peter Chartier, the other for us, to break in pieces all the [casks] so brought."Randolph Chandler Downes, Council Fires on the Upper Ohio: A Narrative of Indian Affairs in the Upper Ohio Valley Until 1795: Vol 42, Western Pennsylvania Historical Survey, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1940.
On 1 May 1734 several Shawnee chiefs dictated a letter to a trader, probably Jonah Davenport: it listed the names of fifteen traders who either had no license or had shown undesirable behavior, such as frequent disputes or violence. Chartier was among seven who were listed as in good standing. The chiefs would allow those men to bring up to 60 gallons of rum a year to their communities, as long as they had a valid license. Chartier was described as "one of us, and he is welcome to come as long as he pleases ... [and] to bring what quantity [of rum] he pleases ..." The letter concludes, "And for our parts, if we see any other traders than those we desire amongst us, we will stave their [casks] and seize their goods." The Shawnee believed that control over the sale of rum would reduce problems resulting from its abuse.
Prohibition of rum in Shawnee communities By 1737 Chartier had become chief of the Pekowi Turtle Clan, with whom he was living.C. Hale Sipe, The Indian Chiefs of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania: Wennawoods Publishing, 1995. He decided to prohibit the sale of rum in Shawnee communities in his area, and persuaded other chiefs to do the same.
In a letter of 20 March 1738, addressed to Thomas Penn and Acting Governor James Logan, three Shawnee chiefs stated: